


you can't build a nightmare (without living it)

by petroltogo



Series: Bitter Sunday [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath, Bitter Sunday, Consequences, Dark, Dark Tony, Evil Tony, Fallout, Gen, Implied Character Death, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Revenge, This is a different kind of bitterness once more, Tony doesn't do things half-way, Tony gets (more than) even, Unforgiving Tony, bad language, no forgiveness, payback is a bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 10:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12628674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petroltogo/pseuds/petroltogo
Summary: "She had known then, not everything perhaps but enough. The others hadn't seen it of course, hadn't been willing to consider it. After all, how could Stark have died when he was so clearly walking among them?"There is a line between nightmare and reality. Or at least there was once.





	you can't build a nightmare (without living it)

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt by @angelofgrace96 on tumblr: "Hatred isn't the opposite of love, apathy is." Tony and Wanda, for Bitter Sunday!
> 
> This one differs from the others in this series but once I thought of it, I just couldn't resist. I've never seen this approach of Tony's revenge on Wanda before and I am weak.
> 
> Enjoy!

For the longest time neither of them spoke. There was no need for it. Nothing they had to say to each other after all these months they had spent in close company. After all the screaming and yelling and accusations that never changed a goddamn thing, never made a fucking difference. There was no silence to fill, for it hadn't been silent, truly silent, in a long time.

Even after the screams of horror and pain had died out, the waves of destruction had been anything but quiet. They still weren't.

Stark stood only a couple of feet away from where Wanda was kneeling in the muddy ground, tired, exhausted, gasping for breath, while Stark stood tall, too proud to show weakness perhaps or too inhumane to be touched by the poison of this world any longer.

Wanda contemplated lunging for him, though more out of habit than true intention. She had no weapons on her anymore, but maybe one of the charred twigs on the ground would be strong enough to pierce Stark's skin. Maybe if she rammed it into his throat hard enough it would finally be over.

Stark's voice broke through her pleasant daydream before Wanda could get lost in the illusion.

"Hatred isn't the opposite of love, apathy is."

Unable to help herself, Wanda snorted. It was a weak sound that broke off into a wet cough half-way through. 

“What did you do, Stark, swallow a calendar with daily quotes for breakfast?” she mocked. It was second-nature to do so still. Despite- everything.

“I wish,” Stark muttered absently, a shadow of longing for something long since lost flashing over his face as he stared at the barren wasteland surrounding them. 

It must have been New York at some point, or maybe Nevada or Iowa. Wanda had lost track of their precise location months ago. Not that it mattered. There wasn’t much of a difference between states, hell entire countries, these days. Utter desolation didn't leave much room for defining landmarks.

There had been, once. Wanda was one of the few people alive who still remembered that. Who had lived in the  _Before_. There had been green grass in that far-away, magical world, and a blue sky, and clean air that didn’t burn deep within your lungs. But most of those memories had faded in time, sounded more like a silly, made-up fairy tale with every passing day.

“Why?” Wanda asked eventually. It hurt to speak, to force the sound up a raw throat and past dry lips. But then, what didn’t hurt these days?

It wasn’t the first time she had asked this particular question. Not by a long shot. But there was something different about this time. About this place. About the way Stark simply stood there, silently took in his surroundings with an air of-accomplishment. Clinical, detached, and yet followed by a sickening sense of pride. Like a god laying eyes upon his first creation for the very first time.

The comparison sent an uneasy shiver down Wanda’s spine.

She had hated Stark for a long time, longer than she cared to remember, but it were moments like these that reminded her why she had begun to fear him too.

When Stark turned towards her and grinned, a happy, boyish smile that didn't belong onto a face covered in grime and blood, Wanda knew she hadn’t feared him  _enough_.

“It’s done,” Stark announced, clapping his hands like a magician on the verge of pulling off his greatest trick.

Except that didn’t make sense because there was  _nothing_  left. Literally. Wanda could feel it in ways an ordinary human would never be able to comprehend, deep within her core, where the power that had long since been bound still resided. Even underneath the destruction surrounding her, there was no life left to rebuild. There was nothing. Nothing.

She was utterly alone in the truest sense of the word.

The realisation hurt every time but Wanda couldn’t stop herself from reaching out, from searching. For anyone. Anything. No matter how pointless it was. No matter how futile. 

“Why?” she repeated.

It should have been a demand, but Wanda had forgotten how to do anything but whisper a long time ago. The scratching in her throat, the trembling in her hands, none of it registered anymore. But this pain, this mind-numbing realisation that the world, humanity, animals, nature was gone, hadn't lost its unbearable intensity in all the time that had past since the Beginning.

There should have been so many questions she had for Stark but Wanda, Wanda was one of the few people who knew most of the answers. She had never wasted her time asking  _How could you do this?_   Never bothered with the disbelief, the terror, the begging and pleading.

Steve - the name of her friend sent another sharp pang through her heart - had never told her what had happened in Siberia. He didn't have to. Wanda had known from the moment she had first caught sight of Stark after that incident. Had felt the way death had clung to him, followed in his shadow. She had known then, not everything perhaps but enough. The others hadn't seen it of course, hadn't been willing to consider it. After all, how could Stark have died when he was so clearly walking among them?

Even after all this time Wanda wanted to sneer at their ignorance. Because that had just been it, hadn't it? 

 _Not all of Stark had made it back from Siberia_. 

But those issues had lost their meaning a long time ago, long before she had buried the last of her friends even. And though Wanda still didn't understand how it could have all gone so wrong, she at least knew why. She knew how it had started.

The only thing she didn't know, the only thing that didn’t make sense, was why she was still alive.

“You know I would’ve thought you’d have figured it out by now,” Stark murmured, patted her head in a mockery of affection.

Wanda didn't bristle. Didn't even flinch. She had lost those impulses a long time ago. But she still didn't understand.

Stark sighed, put out to have to explain the brilliance of his plan no doubt. Wanda almost smiled at that. She had to get her satisfaction where she could these days.

“We're both architects, you and me, little witch. This,” he gestured around them wildly, smiling, ever the charming showman, “is my nightmare. The nightmare you created.”

His grin widened and Wanda _wished_ it was insanity lighting up his eyes. "And I made it your reality. See, little witch, there was no point in killing you. Not after all the effort I put into turning my nightmare into yourreality. After all, how will you learn what it means to play god, when you aren’t forced to live with your creation?”

Wanda curled her fingers into the soaked earth at her knees, only peripherally aware of the blood coating her hands. Stared in silent, disbelieving horror at the man who had ended the world. Because of a nightmare. Because of _her_.

Above them the sky burned.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it despite the fact that it isn't necessarily Tony-friendly either! I just wanted Wanda's vision to be turned against her- and Tony isn't the type to do things half-way. Coupled with a lacking conscience, well, here we are. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are for free as always ;)
> 
> Follow me on tumblr: [tonystarktogo](http://tonystarktogo.tumblr.com/).


End file.
